


Fourteen Warning Signs You Might be Dating a Faunus

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Ableism, Attempt at Humor, Blind Character, Canon Compliant, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dating, Established Relationship, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Flirting, Fluff, Inspired by Fanfiction, Light Angst, Love, No Smut, POV Third Person, Snark, Volume 2 (RWBY), Wordcount: 5.000-10.000, i think it's fluff, what is fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 01:36:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9944540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: "You know she's a faunus, right?"As a blind man and a Faunus woman, Fox and Velvet have never had the best of luck when it comes to date nights. Racists looking to 'protect' Fox are some of their more annoying problems. So they've had to get creative in their responses. Turnabout, after all, is fair play.Technically a sequel, but can be read as a stand-alone fic. Mostly fluff.





	

**Author's Note:**

> " _You know she's a faunus, right?_ "
> 
> _The question was common enough - well-meaning bystanders pulling him aside to tell him about Velvet's ears. He tried not to let it bother him, even though it did. The implication that Velvet was somehow trying to trick him into dating her would never quite sit right with him._
> 
> \- _[The Crosses They Bear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9711962)_
> 
> This is technically a sequel to _[Take My Hand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6946696)_ , which establishes the relationship between Fox and Velvet, but that is not required reading to understand the events of this fic.

"Fox! _Fox_!" Velvet's voice called out through the bathroom door, which was flung open in excitement a moment later. "You _have_ to read this…"

"If it's the letter from Maintenance, Coco already told me. I've apologized and promised to pay for the damages," Fox muttered, rolling over in bed. They'd returned some time ago from one of Coco's pre-Vytal Tournament training sessions, and he was quite possibly more sore than he had ever been in his brief existence. And not for fun reasons, either. He'd stripped out of his shirt, scarred and muscled arms spread to invite ogling (or more), toned abdominal muscles glistening under a sheen of masculine sweat…

And of course Velvet had wanted to do nothing more than take a shower and wash the stench of exercise from her skin. Not that Fox could blame her. He'd have killed for one as well, having one less sensory input than everyone else to distract himself with. But he was nothing if not a gentleman (as he'd gone to great lengths to remind Velvet), yielding without protest his claim of 'dibs' on the shower. As well as any hopes of warm water, if his internal clock had been remotely accurate.

" _Fourteen Warning Signs You Might be Dating a Faunus_ ," Velvet read aloud, sounding almost giddy as she did. "I was just skimming this on the toilet and you wouldn't _believe_ -" Velvet cleared her throat, before launching into a flawless imitation of a woman several decades older and considerably more prissy than she was. "'Readers should be _alarmed_ by the case of Missus Emily LeBlanche, a fifty-nine year old banker from Atlas who was _horrified_ to learn that her husband of twenty-one years was, in fact… a _Faunus_.'" Velvet put her own melodramatic emphasis on the last word, glancing at Fox as she did, like she was announcing the identity of the killer in an old-timey murder mystery.

"People are weird," Fox said by way of reaction, sitting up to lean against the headboard, and pointedly ignoring the stack of Braille-embossed papers stapled together beside him. Coco had gone to the effort of printing out a Braille edition of the romantic drama they were studying for their Literature class, so that he could review it without skipping about the audio version on his Scroll. Though why anyone thought a dramatic recitation of _Pyramus and Thisbe_ was an essential part of a Huntsman's education remained beyond Fox. His finger hadn't moved an inch in an hour, but he felt just a _little_ too guilty to ignore the text entirely.

"Where'd you get that, anyways?" he asked, looking for any excuse to flee from his studies. Though he _was_ genuinely curious - his girlfriend wasn't usually the trashy lit type.

Velvet chose to ignore him, turning a page of what to Fox's ear sounded like a glossy magazine of the type you bought in line at the grocery store. "'Mrs. LeBlanche, who was rendered blind in a drink drive accident when she was a teenager, told the _Daily Raven_ that she was unaware of her husband's _four foot long prehensile monkey tail_ because they were' - and I'm quoting here - ' _very_ proper people who did not spend a great amount of time making love'."

"Poor guy," snorted Fox, as he felt Velvet depress the mattress beside him. Their arms rubbed gently against one another as Velvet leaned against the headboard. She was wearing a thin cotton T-shirt, he could tell by the touch, the fabric stopping just beneath her shoulders. His hand found a spot on one of her bare knees.

Velvet's leg tilted outwards to his touch. "'Loyal readers of the _Daily Raven_ have inundated our inbox with similar horror stories of being deceived by Faunus, often for years on end.'" Fox's head nestled in the crook of Velvet's neck, his hand drifting northwards from her knee to the hem of the shorts she slept in. "Unlike Mrs. LeBlanche, most of these stories were submitted by readers without any visual impairments whatsoever. We at the _Daily Raven_ have taken it upon ourselves to survey recognized experts in the field' - field of _what_ they don't say, of course - 'and come up with a list of warning signs that your partner might secretly be a Faunus." Velvet sounded more engrossed in the tabloid rag than just about any piece of literature in the past year.

"Because being a trusting - or even _halfway-decent_ \- human being is just _such_ a pain," griped Fox. Velvet _hummed_ pleasantly and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, confirming that she more amused by the absurdity than horrified by the racism.

" _Da da da daaaa_ …" she skipped ahead, eyes skimming the page. "'Sign Five: Your partner insists on always wearing socks, slippers or boots, even when being intimate. This is a _commonly-used_ tactic by Faunus to conceal appendages such as paws or talons.'"

Fox leaned forward in bed, feeling around for Velvet's feet, which were indeed concealed in athletic socks that almost came up to her knees. She'd steadfastly refused to confirm his belief that she'd stolen them from Yatsuhashi during first year.

Velvet squirmed a little as he pulled them off one foot at a time, Fox shuffling on the mattress so he could bring her toes to his lips. Velvet let out a playful giggle at the kisses that followed. "No animal appendages here," he confirmed, after each toe had received an individual peck. "Guess I'm safe."

" _Arsehole_ ," griped Velvet, toothlessly. She flipped another page. "'Sign Six - your partner _insists_ on always wearing a hat, bow or headscarf. While they may claim that this is a matter of personal taste, or even a cultural or religious requirement, many Faunus will don elaborate headgear in order to hide their animal ears…'" Her feet slipped through Fox's grasp.

Without a word Fox slid back to Velvet's side of the bed. She hunched up slightly in anticipation of a stroke of her ears, but Fox just wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her into him. He'd caught the way her voice had wavered a little towards the end, a note of sadness creeping in to what had otherwise been a cathartic exercise in mockery. Velvet leaned deeper into him, nestling against his chest, the magazine crumpling in her hands.

"You know I love you, right?" asked Fox, the low rumble from his chest reverberating in Velvet's ear. "No matter what?"

"You never need to ask," Velvet confirmed, short nails tracing pathless lines across her boyfriend's breastbone. Fox's hand found her head, his fingers brushing through her hairs in the gap between leporine and human ears.

"I feel bad for that lady's husband," said Fox, eyes staring emptily at the ceiling above him. "I mean, you don't stick around with someone for twenty years because you're trying to con them. For whatever reason…" he struggled to find the words, Velvet's hairs slipping between his fingers as he did "…. the guy thought this was the best course of action." Fox exhaled loudly, Velvet sinking slightly as he did. " _Maidens_ that must have been hell."

"Mm," Velvet _hummed_ in wordless agreement. "It is all rather depressing, though," she said a minute later, her head rising and falling with Fox's breaths. "That this is something humans genuinely worry about. Dating a Faunus without knowing it, I mean." Fox heard the magazine _crinkling_ in her tightened grip.

"I don't think anyone _actually_ does," Fox stated, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze. "Racist idiots might not date Faunus, yeah, but the whole ' _how could they have_ tricked _me_ ' bit… It's just a bit of sensationalist gossip that sells to bored housewives."

"…Right…" Velvet agreed, with a sorrowful sigh. Fox used his free hand to grope around for the blanket, doing his best to drape it over them without disturbing Velvet from her perch. "No, I'm sure you're right, Fox…"

* * *

" _Excuse me_ , sir," called out a voice from beside Fox. He could tell at once that he was the one being addressed; everyone seemed to have a unique tone of voice used only when addressing the blind. Said voice sounded like it belonged to a woman in her late thirties, an Atlas native, if the trace of an accent was anything to go by. Someone was shuffling around beside her - boyfriend or husband, if Fox had had to guess - hovering just a few feet back from the table he was seated at.

"Yeah?" Something subconscious clenched his stomach tight.

"You… you should know that the girl you're with is a Faunus," the woman said, a note of nervousness edging into her voice. The ambient noise of the café seemed to vanish in a heartbeat.

"A rabbit Faunus," came a voice from beside the woman, male and from Vale. "Big ears on her head." The man's tone was almost affable, as if he was pointing out which part of Fox's carburetor was broken.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Fox's tone was considerably _less_ affable.

"Huh?" The man sounded taken aback, as if this was the _last_ thing he expected his act of charitable advice to elicit.

Fox was on his feet a moment later, a wrought-iron chair scraping against a stone floor. He couldn’t quite stare his adversaries in their eyes, but his own gaze tended to have a disquieting effect on strangers when he bore down upon them. "Is there something _wrong_ with that?"

"Fox!" Velvet called out his name from across the table.

"No, Velvet, these nice people thinks there's a problem," Fox stated, his voice suddenly low and menacing. His blood was pumping hard enough that he could almost hear it in his head. "Come on, what's the problem?"

"Look, mister, if that's your thing then I didn't mean to-"

" _Say it_!" Fox demanded, his voice drowning out every other sound in the café. "Say you have a _fucking_ problem with us!" And all of a sudden there no other noises in the café at all.

Not until he heard the scrape of Velvet's chair, the sound of her hurriedly collecting her coat and purse, her footsteps storming off. Fox stood, unable to think for several long seconds, the meddling humans vanishing into the all-of-a-sudden _very_ animated crowd.

He exhaled loudly, rubbing his face with his hand like he wanted to wipe it off his skull.

' _Remember when Velvet said she didn't like causing a scene_ ,' a treacherous voice in the back of Fox's head reminded him. He did his best to ignore it, leafing through his pockets for spare change. Despite many public campaigns to the contrary lien still weren't encoded with Braille, so Fox preferred to pay with coins when it was possible. _'When she said she doesn't_ like _it when you start fights on her behalf? Because at the end of the day, you're really starting fights to make_ yourself _feel good, not her. You know that, right?'_

"Shut up, asshole," Fox muttered to himself, slamming down enough coinage on the table to cover their bill and then some. He stumbled his way out the door, stepping into the crisp air of Vale in autumn, wondering how he was going to make it up to her _this_ time.

"I'm over here," Velvet said, speaking from a few feet to his left. Fox didn't jump, but only barely. She hadn't gone far, scarcely over the threshold of the café. He'd probably never left her sight. "I'm sorry I left you in there." Her voice was quiet, barely audible over the din of traffic.

"Don't be," Fox replied, doing his best not to sound dejected. The two of them did not exactly have a stellar batting average when it came to successful dates. "I'm sorry I started a fight. Again." It wasn't the first time Fox had apologized to a girlfriend pointedly more pacifistic than he was.

He felt Velvet's hand in his, and he shut up. She lead him silently through Vale's winding streets, until he was good and properly lost, eventually dragging him into an unfamiliar park where a dozen fountains sung to his ears. Velvet seated herself on a bench, close enough to the fountains that Fox could almost feel its spray on his skin. He took the cue to wrap an arm around her, his free hand finding hers.

" _So_ …" Velvet began, after a long but strangely comfortable silence. "Another date where we try going someplace nice and end up alone in the middle of nowhere." She sighed, surveying the park. "I suppose it's prettier than a rooftop."

Fox snorted a little at that. He'd take snarky Velvet over sad Velvet any day of the week. "We're, what, oh-for-eight at this point?" Fox agreed, a thumb strumming over her knuckles.

"Something like," Velvet confirmed. She exhaled, and her whole body seeming deflate. "I don't want to stop trying, you know. Trying to have normal dates, I mean, as bad as our luck is." She paused. "Assuming you're still up for it, of course?"

"My little masochist," was all her boyfriend said in reply, leaning over so he could plant a kiss on her brow. Fox realized Velvet was holding her breath. "Yeah, I want to keep trying. One of these days we'll have a normal date. I mean, _statistically_ , if nothing else."

Velvet let out her breath in a chuckle. "The odds _are_ in our favor," she agreed. Then she sighed. "No more defending my honor, though. I mean…. no more pointless fights. I thought we'd agreed."

"I can't guarantee that," Fox said, even as Velvet hooked her foot around his.

He'd never had a problem picking his fights before he'd met Velvet. Old Fox just wasn't that invested in what other people thought of him, or _anyone_ , really. His ego, male though it was, didn't bruise easily; Fox's pride didn't require him to retaliate to every slight. He'd bit his tongue, kept his head down, played it safe.

Being in love with someone so perennially abused had, it turned out, actually complicated his _modus operandi_ quite a bit. "I promise to stop yelling at every racist who tries to ruin our nights, though."

"Don't make a girl a promise," said Velvet with a wry grin, "if you know you can't keep it."

Fox shrugged. "Let's say _best efforts_ , then. Deal?"

"Deal."

* * *

" _Young man_. Excuse me, young man!" came a gravely voice from over Fox's shoulder. Fox inhaled deeply, and he tried to visualize what kind of dress Velvet was wearing instead of what he was really just a moment's lapse in self-control away from doing. The voice belonged to elderly man, as did the shuffling, _approaching_ gait. A regular _tapping_ accompanied the man's steps, which Fox readily placed as a cane.

"…Yes?" The Huntsman-in-training finally answered, when it became clear that the elderly gentleman was standing beside their table and waiting for an invitation to continue.

" _Ahem_." The older man leaned close to Fox's ear, and Fox was suddenly _intimately_ aware that the intruder had ordered the fish. "Do you know that the woman you're dating here…" the gentleman paused, either for breath or dramatic effect "…has _rabbit ears_?"

_Definitely_ for dramatic effect, he decided.

"I do," Fox confirmed, a sudden change in air confirming the man's recoiling. "It's why I'm going out with her, actually."

"Beg pardon?" replied the older man, his lip audibly wobbling.

"Yeah, you know, I kind of have a fetish," Fox continued, wincing as the pointed toe of Velvet's heeled shoe dug into his shin. "For animal traits, I mean," he appended, completely unnecessarily. 

"But… but her ears are simply _grotesquely_ large."

' _The bigger the better_ ', that's what I always say." Fox waited a beat, listening for the telltale sounds of feet shuffling away, but none came. Fox frowned - he usually was _pretty_ good at making people too uncomfortable to stick around. "So, yes, I am _massively_ aroused right now, if that's what you were wondering." He managed not to whimper in pain as Velvet did her best to impale him beneath the table. He kept his expression completely deadpan. "If you're interested, let me tell you about the first time we-"

"-You really _must_ excuse me," stated the elderly gentleman, hurrying off faster than he'd walked in years.

Fox leaned back in his booth, the vinyl squeaking slightly in response to his weight, smiling smugly, and doing his best not to focus on the _throbbing_ pain in his shin.

"You are going to get us _kicked out_ ," Velvet hissed, for once thankful that Fox couldn't witness the idiotic grin she was failing to suppress. Seeing the _extreme discomfort_ on the old human's face was almost worth it…

_'Turnabout is fair play, arse_.'

Fox snorted. "Hey, I managed to get us to the dessert menu without starting any fights. I think that's ' _best efforts_ ' by anyone reasonable definition."

"Even overlooking your public fetishization of my ears, you are forgetting the fact that this is a _family restaurant_!"

Fox blinked, suddenly _far_ more uncomfortable than he'd been for the entirety of the verbal confrontation. He _had_ just been complaining about the screaming kids at the table over, come to think of it…

"Alright, so - good boyfriend that I am - I can see why you _might_ be upset…"

*

Coco giggled a little to herself, her thumb scrolling through the missive of a text message Velvs had sent a little over an hour ago. She regretted not having read it the moment it was written, though in her defense she _had_ been otherwise preoccupied.

"I thought we agreed no Scrolls during sex," Yatsuhashi stated, even as Coco's nails gently raked the skin of his back.

" _You're_ the one who said they needed a breather," Coco shot back. "Besides, it's a team alert."

"Velvet?" Yatsuhashi induced, sitting up in bed. He squinted slightly, the light from Coco's Scroll the only illumination in the dorm room at present.

" _Mm-hm_ ," the team leader confirmed. She'd never been much of a cuddler, but Coco leaned into crevice between Yatsu's arm and torso. "Another racist fuck tried to tell Fox that Velv's Faunus."

"Oh." Yatsuhashi gently tightened his grip around Coco, relishing the feel of skin against skin. "Is Velvet okay?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah, she's fine. Fox didn't punch-out a geriatric, so we can enjoy another night without police paperwork." She paused. "It sounds like they can't go back to that restaurant for a little while, but that's kind of an unrelated thing."

Yatsuhashi blinked. He debated probing further, but figured he'd probably have better luck just asking Velvet in the morning. And then Coco shook her head, tossing her Scroll into a thick pile of clothes on the floor.

"Now what were _we_ doing?"

* * *

"Hey, man," someone patted Fox on the shoulder, causing him to bristle. There were few things in the world that Fox Alistair hated _quite_ like uninvited physical contact. "You know your date's Faunus, right?"

He heard Velvet suck in her breath across the table. The sound of cutlery suddenly scraping across ceramic. The wordless anticipation of another explosion of testosterone…

"No, she's not," replied Fox, perfectly evenly, perfectly coolly.

" _Excuse me_?" The two people nearest Fox responded with the exact same choice of words. He happened to be sleeping with one of them.

Fox affixed his politest smile to his face. "The woman I'm dating, her name's Velvet, and she's not a Faunus."

"Um… man I don’t know if you saw the Channel Eight special last night-"

"I didn't," Fox stated, tapping his temple.

"Oh, right. Sorry, didn't mean to offend. I just meant there was another story about a guy who didn't realize he was engaged to a Faunus, and, uh…" the young man's voice trailed off for a moment… " _that's_ definitely one. She has these, uh, hare ears, I guess that's what they are?"

Fox shoved another forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. He wasn't really a pasta person, but there weren't a lot of other restaurants that offered candlelight dinners on a student budget. "It’s a common mistake, don't worry."

"Mistake?"

"Mm." Fox dabbed his lip with the napkin. _Anything_ with this much sauce was just asking for trouble, and Coco had warned him that he was wearing white. "Velvet here was injured in a horrible workplace accident some time ago. What was it, my love, three, four years this month?"

He reached out and found Velvet's hand, which was clutching a knife and clearly conflicted about how best to use it. _Continue dining_ , _homicide_ , and _ritual disembowelment_ were in the middle of a three-way shouting match in the young woman's head. " _Fox_ …"

"What kind of workplace accident causes-"

"-Explosion at a slipper factory," Fox supplied, easily. "Imperfections in a Dust crystal caused some of the machinery to critically fail, and two oversized slippers were embedded in my dearest's skull." He paused, taking a sip of his wine, wincing as he did. Coco _had_ warned him about the cost of being cheap…

"Why… didn't she just get them removed?" asked the interloper, making a fatal misstep onto Fox's absurdist train of thought.

"Doctors said they couldn't." Fox blinked, surprised to hear Velvet's (suspiciously) saccharine voice. "As I've already told my love _many_ times, the surgeons said the procedure is simply too dangerous. Risks permanent brain damage."

"But I don't love her for it any less," Fox added.

A long silence descended upon them.

"An explosion…"

"…at a slipper factory," Fox completed, patting Velvet's hand with a smile and returning to his meal.

"Please forgive me if I don't say more," Velvet added. "Even all these years later it's still an _extremely_ traumatic memory."

Fox twirled spaghetti around his fork. 

"…You're fucking with me," the man finally stated, drawing back as if struck.

Fox turned to face the intruder, staring him down without seeing as only a battle-hardened Huntsmen could. " _Massively_."

One moment passed, then a second.

Then the sound of footsteps, scurrying away.

Fox _beamed_. "I'm really regretting not going with a pizza now," he said, in one of the more egregious _non sequitors_ of his life. "I've heard it's a stone oven and everything."

"Fox, that was…" Velvet's voice dropped down to its familiar softness, even as she grasped for words.

" _Acceptable_?" Fox supplied, with audacious optimism.

Velvet sighed. "Yes…" she begrudgingly admitted. "Thank you for not starting a fight or horribly embarrassing me. I suppose."

"Thanks for helping me mess with him."

Velvet's chair scraped against the floor as she raised herself from her seat, leaning across the table to plant a soft kiss on Fox's lips. "If people want to make us uncomfortable, then, well… fair's fair."

*

Several tables over, peering over sunglasses that cost more than the rest of her outfit combined, Coco exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours, watching like a hawk as her roommates went back to being nauseatingly adorable together.

"Well, I think that was an improvement," she said, refocusing her attention on her own table and spearing a meatball off of Yatsuhashi's plate.

Yatsuhashi didn't need to glance over his shoulder. "I take it Fox kept his temper?"

"Yeah." Coco found Yatsuhashi's leg beneath the table, brushing against it unthinkingly. " _Maidens_ , though, I can't say I blame him when he doesn't."

"Fox?"

"Yeah," repeated Coco. Yatsuhashi nodded in agreement, but said nothing. They _all_ felt fiercely protective of Velvet - it was really hard not to, when she was probably the sweetest girl any of the humans of CFVY had ever encountered. Fox hadn't been the only roommate Velvet had had to warn off of conspicuous displays of chivalry on her behalf. "He's roping Velvet into his pranks now, though. Which is _great_."

"Oh, dear," said Yatsuhashi, in a completely flat tone that was in no way a lament. He wolfed down as much of his meal as he could while Coco was otherwise preoccupied. "Nice to see Velvet having some fun," he offered between mouthfuls, as sagely as he could manage.

"Yeah…" Coco softly agreed, before returning to poaching Yatsu's meal. "Still, you know, I hope this doesn’t become a _thing_."

* * *

Everyone expected Fox to like music more than he did.

Since, everyone assumed, he couldn't get any enjoyment out of television or movies, and he probably didn't _read_ all that much, everyone just kind of _assumed_ that Fox spent his leisure listening to soft jazz or opera or whatever other genre best fit their mental image of the visually impaired. Because what _else_ was a blind young man going to do with his free time?

(For most of his life, nobody had ever answered: ' _spending every spare moment exercising and training in order to gain acceptance to a prestigious Huntsmen academy.'_ )

To her credit, Velvet had never assumed that Fox enjoyed soft jazz. She'd simply told him the kind of music _she_ enjoyed, one night while they were eating dinner in bed like real adults, sharing her likes and dislikes the same way a million couples across Remnant did every day. Fox had explained that he didn’t listen to music all that much, because he found it too distracting most times, but when he did he tended to go for either lyrical rock and rap or very ambient techno. Velvet had nodded understandingly at that, not believing for a second the myth that couples needed to have similar musical preferences to be compatible.

And then she took him to a jazz club anyways.

He made his way back to their table, a bottle of beer in either hand. Velvet's fingers brushed over his as he handed one to her, glass _clinked_ against glass in a wordless toast. Normally Velvet would've elected to get drinks from the bar in a venue as crowded and unfamiliar as Club Errera, but she was engrossed in the performance, and Fox didn’t mind giving himself something _else_ to focus on. Not after two-and-a-half hours of _free jazz_.

" _Thanks for coming here with me_ ," said Velvet, leaning in close to be heard without shouting over the sound of the live band. She kissed his forehead. "I'm having fun."

A flicker of guilt coursed through Fox. The part of his brain dedicated to snarkiness immediately drafted a reply: _well, as long as_ one _of us is_ \- but he angrily suppressed it. Fox knew he played up his own reluctance to go out, made a bit out of being a grump, but he never wanted Velvet to feel like _just taking her on dates_ was some huge imposition on him. _That_ actually _did_ make him feel like the asshole he sometimes pretended to be. Not when Velvet "dragging" him to things had made his world so much richer…

"Thanks for taking me," he whispered back, with a small smile of unironic sincerity.

He didn't need to see to know that Velvet was shooting him a quizzical expression, and to know that it wasn't a skeptical one. Velvet never doubted him, never patronized him with well-intentioned second-guesses. Not when he was being sincere. Velvet was one of the few people he'd met who'd simply take him at his word, on trust and on faith. Maybe with a bit of gentle ribbing, if he was being particularly pompous about something, but she never made the polite noises of encouragement so many did when Fox was within earshot.

She leaned forward, finding Fox's hand and drawing his head close to hers. Fox could feel a small, flickering flame positioned beneath them on the table. Velvet's lips parted, sucking breath as if to say something, but then she stopped suddenly. Her voice was a conspiratorial murmur before Fox could have hoped to ask. "Racist human on your six."

Fox blinked. "How can you tell?" he asked, genuinely curious.

A hand, broad and firm, clamped down on his shoulder. Fox felt like he'd sunk about an inch into his seat, very literally. "Hey, man, sorry about your eyes," said the human, offering Fox a reassuring squeeze of the shoulder.

"Don't mention it," Fox growled back. "Seriously."

"I know it ain't easy adjusting, good that you're out here, man, trying to live life to its fullest," the intruder continued, his hand still on Fox's shoulder. Fox idly wondered what the man would think if he knew Fox fought soulless abominations for a living. "If there's anything I can help with, you just give me a shout, okay?"

"Sure thing, man," said Fox, actually relaxing slightly. It was a conversation he had every other time he left the grounds of Beacon, seeing as it didn't exactly take a private eye to deduce that he was blind. Their hearts were in the right place, as Velvet was apt to point out, but over a decade of sightlessness still hadn't endeared Fox to the intrusions of his personal space.

_Speaking of Velvet_. She was probably the _last_ person to suspect a Good Vacuan of malevolence, but she _had_ straight-up said he was racist without the slightest-

"And, man, nice to see that you're trying to get some ass, still, but you know your lady-friend's a Faunus, right? ' _Ah,_ there _we are'._ "I know you're probably blue-balled to the Shallow Sea, but you gotta _watch_ yourself, man."

Velvet's leg slid up his. "Hey, thanks man," said Fox, in a tone neutral enough to end the conversation without dramatic-

"- I swear I love you, Fox Alistair, _please_ don't leave me," literally _shrieked_ Velvet, throwing herself across the table at him. "I'm sorry I deceived you but I couldn't _bare_ the thought of our love ending."

"Uhh…. hey man…"

Fox's brain _clicked_ , and he was on his feet moment later. "You're a _Faunus_!?" he cried back, loudly and melodramatically enough to turn every head in the club. "How _could_ you?!"

"It's true!" Velvet exclaimed, standing upright so she could _clasp_ her hands to her chest like her heart was about to burst from it. "I was born with another set of ears atop my head, a _rabbit_ 's ears, damn them!" She threw herself at Fox's feet, hands now clutching his. "But my love for you is _real_! Can't you _feel_ it?"

Fox stammered backward. "I told my _family_ about you!" he cried out to the heavens. "How can I ever face them now? Now that I know I have bedded a beast." Some part of Fox's brain wondered where exactly he was getting his unusual cadence from. Another part remembered they had that 'dramatic reading' performance in two days. That was it.

"Damn them all, Fox! We can run away, run away and live as Huntsman and Huntress, outside of the walls and this judgmental world. I will follow you to the deepest depths of Hell if it means spending but another moment in your embrace." Velvet was pouring a quite frankly _shocking_ amount of herself into her performance, which Fox chalked up to two beers and a teetotaler's constitution.

"Oh Velvet, I could never forsake you. Our love transcends the petty differences of our…uh… _species_!"

Fox was running out of dramatic banter, but thankfully Velvet tossed him a lifeline. Or rather, tossed _herself_ at him with enough force that her off-balanced boyfriend careened backwards onto the table.

Fox grunted in gross discomfort as something - quite possibly the candle - wedged itself in his back, along with more cutlery than he was frankly comfortable with. But Velvet stifled his groan with a mouth-enveloping kiss, clawing at his clothes in a more melodramatic display of lust than they'd ever had in real life.

Velvet pulled him upright, hands on his cheeks. "Now, Fox. _Now_ we must leave." The back of her hand slapped her forehead. "Leave this world behind an entwine our souls for all eternity." She took his fingers in hers, and a moment later they were racing out the door. Fox _barely_ had enough time to snag their bottles of beer on the way out….

*

Four tables over, sunglasses long forgotten on the table beneath her, Coco stared slack-jawed at where her teammates had once sat. She wasn't the only one who had been rendered utterly speechless by the spectacle. "Okay, what the _actual fuck_ was that."

Yatsuhashi shrugged, returning to the set list. "There I times I worry that Fox is a bad influence on her…"

Coco shot him a _murderous_ glance. "Ya think?"

*

"Yatsu's right," Fox mused, mostly to himself, as he nursed the dregs of his beer. "I _am_ a bad influence on you."

Velvet snorted a most unladylike snort, nuzzling up close beside him. Mostly for warmth, she told herself, the night's winds cutting into skin her dress did too little to cover.

"Nobody can say I wasn't warned." She giggled to herself, the adrenal high of their little improv theater leaving her slightly giddy.

She took another swig of her beer, hoping that the magical warming properties of ethanol would kick in sometime soon. They'd always loved rooftops, but they could get _bloody_ cold after leaving the warmth of a well-heated restaurant. Not that she really minded., whatever she said in complaint. They'd shared their first kiss on a rooftop, after all, escaped to them dozens of times during their treks into the city. It obviously helped that they had powerful Auras, that they could leap (small) buildings in single strides, find oases of solitudes in deserts of density.

Fox set his bottle down on the air conditioning unit they'd perched atop. Velvet looked at him expectantly, shuffling slightly as his hands found hers. "You know you're the greatest thing in my life, Velvet." Velvet wanted to say something, but found her tongue tied in knots instead.

"I don't say that enough. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. No-" Fox shook his head. "That… that sounds wrong, like you're a pleasant breeze or a good harvest. I mean… you didn't just _happen_ to me. 'Shit happens', that I get, but this, this…"

Velvet could've been standing in polar Atlas and not felt the cold.

"Yes, Fox, I _chose_ this. Maybe I didn't choose to fall in love with you, but I _did_ choose to run with it as far as I possibly can. Run _with_ you, Fox, with you to…

"…to the end of the world?" he helpfully supplied.

Velvet snorted without losing her smile. "You just _had_ to make it doomy and gloomy, didn't you?"

Fox shrugged. "I've been told it's part of my charm." His arms ensconced Velvet's waist. "Along with my quick wit and bubbly personality."

Velvet giggled, blowing a strand of copper-red hair that had drifted in front of Fox's eyes. "Never change?"

Fox snorted at that, planting a kiss on Velvet's lips. "Seems fatalist. How about 'only for the better'?"

Velvet responded with a kiss of her own. "Deal."

They didn't leave the roof for hours.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, feedbacks, and reviews of any sort are always appreciated. Seriously, nothing warms my heart quite like that little email notification from AO3. If you read it today or ten years from now, it's all the same goodness! Even a single sentence letting me know if it was good or meh goes a long way to keeping me sane.
> 
> My depiction of Fox, 99% unsupported in canon, is heavily influenced by _[Cockeyed: A Memoir](https://www.amazon.com/Cockeyed-Ryan-Knighton/dp/1586484400)_ by Ryan Knighton, which is probably the funniest book about going blind that you'll ever read. (Though I should note that it is still not an _easy_ read). And a big chunk of my inspiration for Velvet (at least in this iteration) came [directly from Caiti Ward herself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chLGt-tSgjY).
> 
> Anyways, my traditional Author Rant time. You know what the hardest part of getting this published was? Not brainstorming, not writing, but ginning up the confidence to publish some fairly fluffy and irreverent. Angst and smut I have no qualms with putting out. Fluff, humor or action? _Sheer terror_.
> 
> ANYWAYS. I went through like fifteen variations on the title, due to uncertainties as to how certain phrases would be associated. (Thanks to [Jefardi](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2200510/Jefardi) and [ChainedPrometheus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChainedPrometheus/pseuds/ChainedPrometheus) for first impressions on that). Also seriously debated calling this fic _Turnabout is Fair Play_ , but my other title's kinda more fun, I feel. There were no proofreaders on this, though I did read it aloud like twice, which I figure has to count for… something.
> 
> ANYWAYS x2. Velvet quotes an old line of Salem's (from a certain point of view), and it's a line that I strangely love. For some reason I always find myself drifting to Fox's POV. I'm still very nervous of making a massive ass of myself whenever I write about racism or disability. And I _still_ can't write Fox and Velvet _nearly_ as well as Lydia Rogue can, but baby steps, and all that…


End file.
